Why Should You Use A Video Strategy?

Video has already shown its strength online through websites like YouTube and Facebook but finding a use for video for a business can come with its complications.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, in 2012 video advertising exploded by 46% smashing the £5 billion mark for the first time, and this figure has continued to grow ever since. So, there is a lot of mileage in video advertising online but working out how it can be profitable for businesses can be part of the headache.

There are a few things you need to work out, like who your audience is, what they will be interested in and, most importantly, is it worth the return on investment?

There are three main goals for content in online marketing, and they include:

• Conversions and Traffic
• Brand Awareness
• Links and Social Shares

And these goals are the same for video too. So, in a perfect world you will want to create a video that has sharable content to gain links and traffic, whilst converting well and promoting your brand without seeming too ‘salesy’.

There are a lot of big brand’s that do it well including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Apple and Disney, but these companies have the budget. The important thing to remember is small businesses don’t have the budget of the giants and there is no point trying to compete with them, but we can learn a lot from them.

YouTube and social media is a great place to start, as many of the brand mentioned do. You don’t have to have a massive budget for video, in fact, many companies can do it from their own offices. If time is the issue, there are companies that don’t charge a fortune for services like this. A few examples include Hub.tv, Short and Suite and BobFilm.

Because of the simplicity of video and the rewards it can bring it could be worth trying it in-house first. Skill set can often be a barrier though, but useful resources like Creative Cow and Izzy Video are extremely helpful.

Let’s think about the reasons for adopting a video strategy in regards to the main goals though to see if there is any mileage in it for you and your business. Similarly to Pay-Per-Click (PPC), video can offer a quick route to a conversions through selling a specific product or service with a relevant call-to-action. It is worth noting though, that YouTube isn’t the best option for conversions as it only attracts traffic to YouTube and not your website.

Brand awareness can be achieved through video by creating a story attached to your brand. Credibility can be achieved too, but it is important to focus on purely informational content and not a hard sell. A key way to measure how influential your brand has been to the audience that don’t already know your brand, focus on the amount engagement and not the amount of views.

Another key factor to ensure brand awareness is consistency. This will give the audience a reason to buy into your brand, without feeling like you have tons of different personalities.

Links and social shares are important too, so create a video that others will embed onto their own websites. By this, I don’t mean ‘viral content’, although of course this can be useful too, I mean useful content with substance that is more likely to gain coverage on high profile domains like the BBC or Mashable.

One thing to follow in relation to each goal is that content will best support a goal when it is created with that goal in mind.  So, to conclude, you can use a video strategy for your business regardless of your budget, but it is important to remember goals and ROI when creating a video.